Tuesday, September 30, 2008

In remarks at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco last Friday Arnold Schwarzenegger again explained his support for Prop 1A, the $10 billion high speed and passenger rail bond. His speech focused on anti-global warming actions and the economic value of reducing carbon emissions - and why we must continue to do do this even during, especially during, a credit crisis.

There is far more economic opportunity in fighting global warming than economic risk....We shouldn't let the budget crisis hold back good things for the future. 20 years from now you can't look back and say "well they had a budget crisis so we didn't do it." Just because we had a problem with the budget does not mean that people should vote "no" on high speed rail. Our rail system in America is so old, we're driving the same speed as 100 years ago, the same system as 100 years ago. We should modernize, we should do what other countries do...We should start in this state, we should show leadership.

I'm not exactly his biggest fan, but this is the "good" Arnold Schwarzenegger - the one who gets the need to build for the future, who understands that the green economy is going to be at the center of California's future. He spoke strongly against drilling, and noted that oil prices only came down through demand destruction - using more public transportation is the only way to bring down gas prices. (Of course Arnold, does that mean you will stop cutting public transit budgets?!) He even spoke favorably, though cautiously, of Sen. Darrell Steinberg's SB 375 - "I'll look at it carefully" - and its smart growth goals.

You can see the video yourself here - scroll to 26:50 for the Prop 1A discussion. (Couldn't get the embed to work for some odd reason.)

Let's hope Arnold takes this message around the state and help get Prop 1A passed.

The Commonwealth Club is also hosting a Prop 1A debate this Friday between Quentin Kopp , chairman of the board of the California High Speed Rail Authority, and Jon Coupal, head of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. Former US Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta will moderate.

My comment also. Since Diridon gets a 6 figure salary from the Mineta Institue in San Jose and since Parsons Brinkerhoff is a major contributor to that institution, that is hardly an unbiased moderator.

While I'm here, I presume everybody noted the LA Times article about a real warchest that has been accumulated to promote the project.

If the voters of California can be bought off, then Prom 1A will pass.

You're mistaken. Mineta's ideology has an anti-passenger rail mentality. As you know, he worked as Secretary of Transportation under our favorite president George W Bush. During that time, when the issue of passenger rail came up, he put put the smack-down and knocked it out. He was basically the mastermind of the Amtrak-killing efforts. Regardless of what you think of Amtrak, his record shows he is clearly anti-rail. I don't care if they named an institute after him, that doesn't change his policies.

rob, all HSR lines around the world are profitable "above the rail" - meaning they do not require operating subsidies. Get your facts straight.

As to Southwest, they've avoided the problems facing other carriers only through complex fuel hedges that locked in contracts when oil was around $55/bbl. Those expire around 2010 and if as expected the price of oil continues to rise, they will be in serious trouble.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Bahnsays that DB has a net income of €1.35 billion, compared to LUV (southwest)'s net income of $645 million (http://www.southwest.com/about_swa/press/factsheet.html)

So the HSR operator DB makes 3 times as much net income as southwest airlines.

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